Bob Thompson and Elshemius at Rosenfeld, Flag Art Foundation, Unreasonable Sized Paintings at SVA Chelsea

Bob Thompson at Michael Rosenfeld (October 2015). Link below. Catching up on some wonderful shows; Thompson's work in this show was uneven but the quality was excellent. The above painting shows a real grappling with the subject matter that later on he jettisons in favor of a more abbreviated presentation.
http://www.michaelrosenfeldart.com/exhibitions/naked-at-the-edge-bob-thompson

Elshemius at Michael Rosenfeld.
Both these shows reviewed by Roberta Smith in  the NYT 10/25/15 linking the artists' independence, love of the past, a "fixation of nudes in the landscape" and a "clumsiness  that was both a limitation and a strength." This was my first exposure to this painter.

http://www.michaelrosenfeldart.com/exhibitions/naked-at-the-edge-louis-eilshemius

Ryan Sullivan at Flag Art Foundation in Surface Tension.
http://flagartfoundation.org/exhibitions/surface-tension/

Another painting at Flag I can't stop thinking about. You can see the painting in situ in the link above, but it is not credited. I love the surface, the imbedding of color, the sense of white with color beneath. 

Joanna Pousette-Dart in Intimacy in the stellar exhibition
Discourse: Unreasonable Sized Paintings, curated by Phong Bui at SVA Chelsea
http://www.sva.edu/events/events-exhibitions/intimacy-in-discourse-unreasonable-sized-paintings

Love this work. Read her interview with Phong Bui (2008) here:
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/10/art/joanna-pousette-dart-with-joan-waltemath

Lisa Yuskavage

So good to see these small studies again,

and to gain a longer view of her work through time

Katherine Bradford

A Bradford that stopped me in my tracks: painter mind at work
film about Bradford's shelf paintings by Carol Saft can be seen here:
https://vimeo.com/109949109

Neo Rauch

Louise Fishman 

Loren Munk

Ellen Phelan

Can't remember artist but truly wonderful paintings

early Margrit Lewczuk

Chris Martin

Don Voisine

Joanne Greenbaum

Inspired pairing

Merill Wagner - the color in the stacked work so spatial

Michael Berryhill

Lois Dodd

More inspired pairing

Matvey Levenstein

Tal R

More Surface

Barbara Rossi at the New Museum. Acrylic on two-sided plexi.

Rossi, Imagst and SAIC Professor, showing works from the 70s in the exhibitions space on the ground floor.
http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/barbara-rossi-poor-traits

These gleam and it is hard to get the color, but Rossi's love for Indian painting is clear. She authored a book on the subject in 2000. See the link here: http://www.amazon.com/From-Ocean-Painting-Popular-Paintings/dp/019511194X

Rossi drawing. 

Not only an incredible eye, mind and hand, but a fabulous person and teacher.  A bow to you, Barbara Rossi.

At Fergus McCaffrey, Sadamasa Motonaga. 

http://fergusmccaffrey.com/exhibition/sadamasa-motonaga-2015-fergus-mccaffrey-new-york/

Motonaga was a member of the Gutai group.

In addition to these airbrush and acrylic paintings he wrote children's books!

This is work he made in New York when he visited in the 1970s.

The show is not aesthetically as focused as presented so far: many works are shown together.

But these airbrush characters are favorites.

Frank Owen at Nancy Hoffman

Owen works in Keene, NY. His studio there is palatial; I visited this summer. He is an aficionado and expert with acrylic paint.

This new work shows a slipping away from his fealty to the grid.

Alexi Worth interviewed Owen for the Brooklyn Rail. Read it here:
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2015/11/art/frank-owen-with-alexi-worth

Simon Hantai (1992-2008), "Blancs," at Kasmin.
http://www.paulkasmingallery.com/exhibition/simon-hanta--blancs

These are canvases that have been folded, and the exterior of the fold painted with acrylic.

They are then unfolded to create patterns.

Consequently the texture of each painting is rippled, raw and topographical with respect to the process of its making.

There was a show of his "pliages" at Muchnin earlier this spring.
http://www.mnuchingallery.com/exhibitions/simon-hanta

Mary Jones watercolor from 2008, in the exhibition "Beyond Decoration: Identity,  Expression and Adornment in Art," at Hudson Guild, organized by Jim Furlong.
http://hudsonguild.org/event/opening-reception-beyond-decoration-identity-expression-and-adornment-in-art/

Early indications of painterly surfaces in Jones' current Xray portraits (previous post): exuberant splashes, the shift between photographic image and paint, doubling the image in ways. 

Also, a  halo effect from spray paint in subsequent works.

Mary Jones, detail

In the same show, technological shards by Gabriel J. Schuldiner.  

He trademarked these works as hybridsculpturalpaintings.

Excessive surfaces - when to stop?

Hudson Guild

Caroll Dunham's exhibition at Barbra Gladstone
http://www.gladstonegallery.com/exhibition/10750/installation-view#&panel1-1

The X painting

Reams of drawings showing how he got there

An exhibition about process

As well as surface

Echoed shapes, rendered like drawings

Often including drawing

A lovely, self-contained landscape by Caroll Dunham

Last call: Beatriz Milhazes at Cohan (Chelsea)
http://www.jamescohan.com/exhibitions/2015-10-22_beatriz-milhazes

Blunt crazy surfaces that are literally painted and collaged together

The work is dense, direct

And at Ed Thorpe, a lovely group exhibition, Receptive Fields.
  http://edwardthorpgallery.com/2015-receptive-fields
This is Sara Faux, fresh from Yale, MFA 2015

Detail - crazy and lovely shifts

Sarah Faux, eye painting

Clint Jukkala - the way these are painted is spellbinding. Moats filled in with color. Edges crisp and perfect while the prime sails on in another direction below. Scraping into gestures at counterpoint, creating a symphonic effect. There is another ending this post down below; uploading in batches puts the images out of order.

From Tom McGlynn's recently closed exhibition "Minimax" at Bullet Space.
http://bulletspace.org/site/minimax
I did not know that Don Voisine painted on styrofoam surfaces as well as wood , and it thrills me to see these pristine compositions on such quotidian grounds.

In the front of the gallery's three rooms, buoyant work by Mary McDonnell, a veteran painter heretofore unknown to me.

Humorously playing with several Tom McGlynn paintings behind.

A photogram by Tenesh Webber, in which the center becomes a void, exploded.

As promised, the fugitive Jukkala from Thorpe. In this painting, which is larger than this image suggests, the circles around the eyes are so flawlessly painted I could never find the lifting of the brush on the left one. Also, there is a spatial corral around the shoulders of this figure, that does not at all communicate in the image, but in real life is gorgeous. There is time to see the show--it closes December 5.